Life Without Car Phones, Faxes? Those Were The Days

The Old Geezer was going on, as old geezers will. The younger folks, as younger folks will, alternately ignored him or patronized him. But wait, something seemed to catch their attention.

"What's that, Geez? What do you mean, `he said to me'? What do you mean, `he had a firm handshake'?"

"Just what I said," said the Geezer, startled at the interest. "He had a firm grip. You know, when he shook hands he gave your paw a hearty squeeze . . ."

"Are you trying to say you actually met someone, actually saw and touched someone?" asked the younger guy. Others in the smoking lounge looked up at the preposterousness of the suggestion.

"Yep," yepped the Geez. "That's the way it used to be. Really. You'd call someone, actually talk to a human being on the phone. You'd chat. Sometimes you'd get together and talk, conduct business." "Get outta here, no one does that," exclaimed an incredulous young fellow who spends his days leaving "voice mail" messages for his clients and sources, who would answer later by a return "voice mail" missive. He hadn't dealt with another human being in months, just recordings, one machine to another machine.

"Not now they don't," said the Geezer, pleasantly aware of the widening eyes upon him. "But back in the Old Days [a shudder ran through the room] there used to be human contact all the time. You'd talk to people. See people. Get to know them sometimes. It was interesting. You knew what they looked like. Maybe you knew about their family. I guess someone thought it wasn't efficient, so they started putting in all these machines. But back then people used to talk to people. You didn't get a recording telling you to `Push One Now,' `Push Two' for whatever you were trying to do. There was a person on the other end."

"It's hard to believe," said another sincere young chap who had conducted years worth of business with his most important contact, and had never once met the person. "But if you had all that ... that -- what would you call it? -- face to face stuff going on, what good would be the fax?"

"Well, exactly," said the Geezer, intentionally lowering his voice slightly, forcing those rapt on the relic's remarks to draw in a little closer. "There was a time when you didn't fax

everything around. You sent letters, notes. If it was important you made the effort to deliver them, or get them there. Wrote them yourself."

"By hand?" wondered another rising star, who was connected to her galaxy by a computer -- sending messages, reports, suggestions, evaluations electronically. She was linked to the various points of her compass by the machine, preferring, after a time, to send a message by computer over actually having to get up and talk with someone. Someone as nearby as a few desks away. "How quaint," she said.

"Maybe. But that's the way it used to be done. You'd look someone right in the eye. Say your piece, do your business. It had some give and take to it, back then. You know another thing? You could talk to someone on the phone and the call wouldn't be interrupted by those click-clicks of "call waiting." You wouldn't be rudely put on hold every 20 seconds or so just because someone else comes along."

"Amazing," said another with a note of skepticism creeping across his voice. "Wouldn't you lose calls that way?"

"Maybe," said the Geezer, "but you kept the one you had and your line of thought or effort wasn't interrupted all the time. There was a politeness to that, too, which used to stand for something. But get this. There's more. Back then you didn't have car phones and computer terminals at home. There was a time when your time was your own, when you weren't connected every second of your waking life."

"Wow, Cave Man City," said a brash young voice with something of a gasp. It belonged to a young man who first encountered his fiancee through a computer, a chitchat service where they exchanged messages across the ether; one thing led to another, as it will with true love, and there's a wedding planned for the spring. He expects to actually meet her soon.

"Well, maybe it was a bit primitive," said the Geezer, stubbing out his cigarette and heading out to his work station. "But there was something nice about a world of people and no recordings."

"Yeah, you bet, Geez. Have a nice day," they said in his wake -- giving each other the smirk. Probably has it all wrong, the poor old fool. You know how the brain goes soft when you hit 40.